sailingbythelee @ sailingbythelee @lemmy.world

Posts

9

Comments

684

Joined

2 yr. ago

What a reductionist view of the world you have. Everything is about race for you, I guess. Brown people good. Jews and white people bad.

Edit: you should consider some help for your anger issues: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-67770178

That's interesting, thanks. I had no idea they managed to get a huge Chinese firm to stop doing business with Israel.

That's kind of broad since some people consider the whole conflict a slow-rolling genocide, not just the latest post-October 7 phase of the conflict. Are their demands specific to the current phase of the conflict? Like, if there is a ceasefire in Gaza, will the Houthis stop firing missiles?

I suppose I kind of get their stated motivation. I mean, Western countries are sanctioning Russia for invading Ukraine. The strange part is that the Houthis aren't targeting Israeli vessels specifically. This is more like if Malta was shooting missiles at non-Russian ships in order to convince China to put pressure on Russia to end the war in Ukraine. It's weird.

That's not what I said, and your derogatory misrepresentation of my comment speaks to the weakness of your "argument", whatever it is. There are many people who want a ceasefire in Gaza, but they aren't firing missiles at cargo ships. I also didn't say they were fighting for no reason. It seems hard to believe that the situation in Gaza is their sole motivation for attacking international cargo vessels. The Houthis seem to be acting more like a proxy for a country that has larger geopolitical goals that benefit from chaos, like Iran or Russia. Based on your hostile "response", I'm guessing you don't know any more than I do.

Raw-dogging the internet...I love it. I'm using that from now on.

I do, like the vast majority of Lemmy users, hold the extremely wealthy responsible for a lot of human suffering, but this is a thread about the Houthis attacking civilian cargo ships. Both capitalists hoarding wealth and terrorists attacking cargo ships can be bad at the same time. Whatever you think of the Palestinian situation, the Houthis are currently adding to the sum total of human suffering, not subtracting from it.

I'm not sure why your first instinct is to insult me when I just tried to engage you in conversation. Why are you even here if you don't want conversation? Are you just looking for an echo chamber?

Cargo includes food, clothing, fuel, building materials and other necessities of life. Fucking with global trade causes inflation, which primarily affects the poorest people. Also, global trade underpins the peace and security of all 8 billion people on Earth. No one group has the right to disrupt the global system of trade over their petty local disputes. If they do, they should expect to feel the full wrath of the rest of the world. Frankly, I'm surprised that the Houthis are being handled with such a light touch so far.

In what way is defending cargo ships not being done "in good faith"? I'm having trouble understanding what that means.

What are the demands of the Houthis? I know they are Iranian-funded and trained, and that they've been warring with the Saudis for years. But now all of a sudden they are world news for attacking global shipping. I also know they say they are supporting the Palestinians, but that seems like a fig leaf.

You seem to be forgetting about the theocracy in Iran.

Or, maybe Christianity isn't what you thought it was.

That dude has only a few keyboard shortcuts. Every comment is either "defeat genocide joe", "fucking capitalists" or "Goddamn fascists". I think it might be a parody account or a bot.

Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have a casus belli. They are mortal enemies stuck together on the same piece of ground. Hamas literally has the goal of eradicating Israel, and they are supported in that goal by Iran and Hezbollah. Hamas aren't "freedom fighters" trying to achieve a reasonable and peaceful compromise toward a two-state solution.

October 7 was conducted deliberately by Hamas to prompt an over-response by Israel. Hamas is hiding among the population and in tunnels under people's homes knowing damn well that their presence is causing the death of tens of thousands of their countrymen.

Did the civilian population ask to used as human shields? I doubt it. Hamas decided to start a war without the consent of Gaza's population.

We are saturated in low-quality media these days, most of which is predictable and poorly written. We've seen all the whiz-bang CGI, the standard plots, the trite romantic scenes, the heroes and the anti-heroes. Movies, in particular, suffer because of their short format. Movies essentially rely on stock characters and formulaic plots because there isn't enough time available for a complex story arc or character development. Because of that, I'd wager that well-planned limited series are more popular than movies among people over 40.

My point is that no civilian should be killed, but that isn't realistic nor is it the criteria for engaging in warfare. What percentage of civilian casualties is "enough" is not a precisely answerable question. The best you can say is, "as few as reasonably possible given the circumstances". No war has zero collateral damage, but that doesn't mean that war is never justified.

In your earlier comment, you said that reaching 1% of the population killed could never be justified. And yet, about 9% of German were killed in WW2, and yet few would argue that the Allies should have stopped fighting once German casualties reached 1% of the population.

No collateral damage is acceptable, but it is unrealistic to think that there will be no collateral damage in war. It is also unrealistic to think that Israel would not respond to the October 7 massacre, and unacceptable for Hamas to use the Palestinian people as human shields to avoid retaliation.

What does that boil down to? Israel has every right to strike back at Hamas. Hamas also has every right to fight against Israel. Because of the way Hamas has dug in to the civilian population and infrastructure, civilian casualties are a given. The number of civilian casualties is a function of two things:

1. How intensively Israel tries to kill Hamas and degrade their capabilities, and,
2. How effectively Hamas uses the Palestinian population as human shields.

In other words, both Israel and Hamas are to blame for civilian casualties. This is the same in every war. Civilians in a war zone always get fucked, no matter who started the war.

It's legal all across Canada at the federal level. The provinces have the ability to regulate administrative aspects such as where it can be sold, who can sell it, how much it is taxed, where it can be grown, etc.

However, unlike the USA, criminal law is the same across the whole country. There are no provincial criminal codes. So, provinces have no ability to criminalize cannabis.

I, for one, do think that the war against Hamas is justified. Israel's stated goal is to destroy Hamas military capabilities. The paradigm isn't tit-for-tat until they're "even". This isn't a slap contest. Israel's paradigm is overwhelming force to destroy the enemy as completely as possible, while also not completely nuking the civilian population. Hamas's paradigm is terrorism against primarily civilian targets, mainly to prevent Israel and the world from settling into complacency regarding the pre-October 7 state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Which is exactly what was happening before October 7.

No one knows when Israel will consider Hamas sufficiently degraded to end the war on their side. Of course, Hamas will never stop fighting Israel, even if there is a ceasefire. It'll just take another decade or so to build up their military capabilities again for another attack. Or, there may be a Third Intifadah and a return to suicide bombing and similar tactics. It's a mess (and always has been).

My friend, Hezbollah is the most influential political party in Lebanon and has its own militia. The Lebanese state not only does not have a monopoly on violence, it doesn't even claim a monopoly on violence. Since at least 2008, despite its constitution, Hezbollah (edit: oops) has been recognized by successive governments as a legitimate military force on the same level as the Lebanese Armed Forces, but with none of the accountability. It also has a vast network covering every aspect of Lebanese society. It is called the "shadow government" of Lenanon for a reason. You will likely find the following analysis interesting.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/06/how-hezbollah-holds-sway-over-lebanese-state